MQL4 and MQL5 Programming Articles

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Study the MQL5 language for programming trading strategies in numerous published articles mostly written by you - the community members. The articles are grouped into categories to help you quicker find answers to any questions related to programming: Integration, Tester, Trading Strategies, etc.

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DoEasy. Controls (Part 27): Working on ProgressBar WinForms object

DoEasy. Controls (Part 27): Working on ProgressBar WinForms object

In this article, I will continue the development of the ProgressBar control. In particular, I will create the functionality for managing the progress bar and visual effects.
Interview with Valery Mazurenko (ATC 2011)
Interview with Valery Mazurenko (ATC 2011)

Interview with Valery Mazurenko (ATC 2011)

The task of writing an Expert Advisor trading on multiple currency pairs is complex both in terms of finding suitable strategies and from the technological side. But if the goal is set clear, nothing is impossible then. It was four times already that Vitaly Mazurenko (notused) submitted his multi-currency Expert Advisor. It seems, he has managed to find the right way this time.
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Estimate future performance with confidence intervals

Estimate future performance with confidence intervals

In this article we delve into the application of boostrapping techniques as a means to estimate the future performance of an automated strategy.
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From Basic to Intermediate: Array (I)

From Basic to Intermediate: Array (I)

This article is a transition between what has been discussed so far and a new stage of research. To understand this article, you need to read the previous ones. The content presented here is intended solely for educational purposes. Under no circumstances should the application be viewed for any purpose other than to learn and master the concepts presented.
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Category Theory in MQL5 (Part 18): Naturality Square

Category Theory in MQL5 (Part 18): Naturality Square

This article continues our series into category theory by introducing natural transformations, a key pillar within the subject. We look at the seemingly complex definition, then delve into examples and applications with this series’ ‘bread and butter’; volatility forecasting.
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Atomic Orbital Search (AOS) algorithm: Modification

Atomic Orbital Search (AOS) algorithm: Modification

In the second part of the article, we will continue developing a modified version of the AOS (Atomic Orbital Search) algorithm focusing on specific operators to improve its efficiency and adaptability. After analyzing the fundamentals and mechanics of the algorithm, we will discuss ideas for improving its performance and the ability to analyze complex solution spaces, proposing new approaches to extend its functionality as an optimization tool.
Idleness is the Stimulus to Progress. Semiautomatic Marking a Template
Idleness is the Stimulus to Progress. Semiautomatic Marking a Template

Idleness is the Stimulus to Progress. Semiautomatic Marking a Template

Among the dozens of examples of how to work with charts, there is a method of manual marking a template. Trend lines, channels, support/resistance levels, etc. are imposed in a chart. Surely, there are some special programs for this kind of work. Everyone decides on his/her own which method to use. In this article, I offer you for your consideration the methods of manual marking with subsequent automating some elements of the repeated routine actions.
Interview with Berron Parker (ATC 2010)
Interview with Berron Parker (ATC 2010)

Interview with Berron Parker (ATC 2010)

During the first week of the Championship Berron's Expert Advisor has been on the top position. He now tells us about his experience of EA development and difficulties of moving to MQL5. Berron says his EA is set up to work in a trend market, but can be weak in other market conditions. However, he is hopeful that his robot will show good results in this competition.
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Data Science and ML (Part 27): Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) in MetaTrader 5 Trading Bots — Are They Worth It?

Data Science and ML (Part 27): Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) in MetaTrader 5 Trading Bots — Are They Worth It?

Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) are renowned for their prowess in detecting patterns in images and videos, with applications spanning diverse fields. In this article, we explore the potential of CNNs to identify valuable patterns in financial markets and generate effective trading signals for MetaTrader 5 trading bots. Let us discover how this deep machine learning technique can be leveraged for smarter trading decisions.
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SQLite capabilities in MQL5: Example of a dashboard with trading statistics by symbols and magic numbers

SQLite capabilities in MQL5: Example of a dashboard with trading statistics by symbols and magic numbers

In this article, we will consider creating an indicator that displays trading statistics on a dashboard by account and by symbols and trading strategies. We will implement the code based on examples from the Documentation and the article on working with databases.
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Risk Management (Part 2): Implementing Lot Calculation in a Graphical Interface

Risk Management (Part 2): Implementing Lot Calculation in a Graphical Interface

In this article, we will look at how to improve and more effectively apply the concepts presented in the previous article using the powerful MQL5 graphical control libraries. We'll go step by step through the process of creating a fully functional GUI. I'll be explaining the ideas behind it, as well as the purpose and operation of each method used. Additionally, at the end of the article, we will test the panel we created to ensure it functions correctly and meets its stated goals.
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Data Science and ML (Part 31): Using CatBoost AI Models for Trading

Data Science and ML (Part 31): Using CatBoost AI Models for Trading

CatBoost AI models have gained massive popularity recently among machine learning communities due to their predictive accuracy, efficiency, and robustness to scattered and difficult datasets. In this article, we are going to discuss in detail how to implement these types of models in an attempt to beat the forex market.
Interview with Igor Korepin (ATC 2011)
Interview with Igor Korepin (ATC 2011)

Interview with Igor Korepin (ATC 2011)

Appearance of the Expert Advisor cs2011 by Igor Korepin (Xupypr) at the very top of the Automated Trading Championship 2011 was really impressive - its balance was almost twice that of the EA featured on the second place. However, despite such a sound breakaway, the Expert Advisor could not stay long on the first line. Igor frankly said that he relied much on a lucky start of his trading robot in the competition. We'll see if luck helps this simple EA to take the lead in the ATC 2011 race again.
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Developing Market Memory Zones Indicator: Where Price Is Likely To Return

Developing Market Memory Zones Indicator: Where Price Is Likely To Return

In this discussion, we will develop an indicator to identify price zones created by strong market activity, such as impulsive moves, structure shifts, and liquidity events. These zones represent areas where the market has left “memory” due to unfilled orders or rapid price displacement. By marking these regions on the chart, the indicator highlights where price is statistically more likely to revisit and react in the future.
Simultaneous Displaying of the Signals of Several Indicators from the Four Timeframes
Simultaneous Displaying of the Signals of Several Indicators from the Four Timeframes

Simultaneous Displaying of the Signals of Several Indicators from the Four Timeframes

While manual trading you have to keep an eye on the values of several indicators. It is a little bit different from mechanical trading. If you have two or three indicators and you have chosen a one timeframe for trading, it is not a complicated task. But what will you do if you have five or six indicators and your trading strategy requires considering the signals on the several timeframes?
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Reimagining Classic Strategies in Python: MA Crossovers

Reimagining Classic Strategies in Python: MA Crossovers

In this article, we revisit the classic moving average crossover strategy to assess its current effectiveness. Given the amount of time since its inception, we explore the potential enhancements that AI can bring to this traditional trading strategy. By incorporating AI techniques, we aim to leverage advanced predictive capabilities to potentially optimize trade entry and exit points, adapt to varying market conditions, and enhance overall performance compared to conventional approaches.
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Data Science and ML (Part 29): Essential Tips for Selecting the Best Forex Data for AI Training Purposes

Data Science and ML (Part 29): Essential Tips for Selecting the Best Forex Data for AI Training Purposes

In this article, we dive deep into the crucial aspects of choosing the most relevant and high-quality Forex data to enhance the performance of AI models.
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Developing a multi-currency Expert Advisor (Part 21): Preparing for an important experiment and optimizing the code

Developing a multi-currency Expert Advisor (Part 21): Preparing for an important experiment and optimizing the code

For further progress it would be good to see if we can improve the results by periodically re-running the automatic optimization and generating a new EA. The stumbling block in many debates about the use of parameter optimization is the question of how long the obtained parameters can be used for trading in the future period while maintaining the profitability and drawdown at the specified levels. And is it even possible to do this?
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Simple solutions for handling indicators conveniently

Simple solutions for handling indicators conveniently

In this article, I will describe how to make a simple panel to change the indicator settings directly from the chart, and what changes need to be made to the indicator to connect the panel. This article is intended for novice MQL5 users.
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News Trading Made Easy (Part 5): Performing Trades (II)

News Trading Made Easy (Part 5): Performing Trades (II)

This article will expand on the trade management class to include buy-stop and sell-stop orders to trade news events and implement an expiration constraint on these orders to prevent any overnight trading. A slippage function will be embedded into the expert to try and prevent or minimize possible slippage that may occur when using stop orders in trading, especially during news events.
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Developing a Replay System — Market simulation (Part 17): Ticks and more ticks (I)

Developing a Replay System — Market simulation (Part 17): Ticks and more ticks (I)

Here we will see how to implement something really interesting, but at the same time very difficult due to certain points that can be very confusing. The worst thing that can happen is that some traders who consider themselves professionals do not know anything about the importance of these concepts in the capital market. Well, although we focus here on programming, understanding some of the issues involved in market trading is paramount to what we are going to implement.
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Integrate Your Own LLM into EA (Part 4): Training Your Own LLM with GPU

Integrate Your Own LLM into EA (Part 4): Training Your Own LLM with GPU

With the rapid development of artificial intelligence today, language models (LLMs) are an important part of artificial intelligence, so we should think about how to integrate powerful LLMs into our algorithmic trading. For most people, it is difficult to fine-tune these powerful models according to their needs, deploy them locally, and then apply them to algorithmic trading. This series of articles will take a step-by-step approach to achieve this goal.
Interview with Andrey Bobryashov (ATC 2011)
Interview with Andrey Bobryashov (ATC 2011)

Interview with Andrey Bobryashov (ATC 2011)

Since the first Automated Trading Championship we have seen plenty of trading robots in our TOP-10 created with the use of various methods. Excellent results were shown both by the Exper Advisors based on standard indicators, and complicated analytical complexes with weekly automatic optimization of their own parameters.
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Neural networks made easy (Part 68): Offline Preference-guided Policy Optimization

Neural networks made easy (Part 68): Offline Preference-guided Policy Optimization

Since the first articles devoted to reinforcement learning, we have in one way or another touched upon 2 problems: exploring the environment and determining the reward function. Recent articles have been devoted to the problem of exploration in offline learning. In this article, I would like to introduce you to an algorithm whose authors completely eliminated the reward function.
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Neural Networks in Trading: Practical Results of the TEMPO Method

Neural Networks in Trading: Practical Results of the TEMPO Method

We continue our acquaintance with the TEMPO method. In this article we will evaluate the actual effectiveness of the proposed approaches on real historical data.
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Developing a Replay System (Part 32): Order System (I)

Developing a Replay System (Part 32): Order System (I)

Of all the things that we have developed so far, this system, as you will probably notice and eventually agree, is the most complex. Now we need to do something very simple: make our system simulate the operation of a trading server. This need to accurately implement the way the trading server operates seems like a no-brainer. At least in words. But we need to do this so that the everything is seamless and transparent for the user of the replay/simulation system.
Grouped File Operations
Grouped File Operations

Grouped File Operations

It is sometimes necessary to perform identical operations with a group of files. If you have a list of files included into a group, then it is no problem. However, if you need to make this list yourself, then a question arises: "How can I do this?" The article proposes doing this using functions FindFirstFile() and FindNextFile() included in kernel32.dll.
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DoEasy. Controls (Part 22): SplitContainer. Changing the properties of the created object

DoEasy. Controls (Part 22): SplitContainer. Changing the properties of the created object

In the current article, I will implement the ability to change the properties and appearance of the newly created SplitContainer control.
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Neural networks made easy (Part 60): Online Decision Transformer (ODT)

Neural networks made easy (Part 60): Online Decision Transformer (ODT)

The last two articles were devoted to the Decision Transformer method, which models action sequences in the context of an autoregressive model of desired rewards. In this article, we will look at another optimization algorithm for this method.
Interview with Vitaly Antonov (ATC 2011)
Interview with Vitaly Antonov (ATC 2011)

Interview with Vitaly Antonov (ATC 2011)

It was only this summer that Vitaly Antonov (beast) has learned about the upcoming Automated Trading Championship and got to know MetaTrader 5 terminal. Time was running out, besides, Vitaly was a newcomer. So, he randomly chose GBPUSD currency pair to develop his trading system. And the choice turned out to be successful. It would have been impossible to use other symbols with the strategy.
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Chaos theory in trading (Part 1): Introduction, application in financial markets and Lyapunov exponent

Chaos theory in trading (Part 1): Introduction, application in financial markets and Lyapunov exponent

Can chaos theory be applied to financial markets? In this article, we will consider how conventional Chaos theory and chaotic systems are different from the concept proposed by Bill Williams.
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Master MQL5 from Beginner to Pro (Part III): Complex Data Types and Include Files

Master MQL5 from Beginner to Pro (Part III): Complex Data Types and Include Files

This is the third article in a series describing the main aspects of MQL5 programming. This article covers complex data types that were not discussed in the previous article. These include structures, unions, classes, and the 'function' data type. It also explains how to add modularity to your program using the #include preprocessor directive.
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A New Approach to Custom Criteria in Optimizations (Part 1): Examples of Activation Functions

A New Approach to Custom Criteria in Optimizations (Part 1): Examples of Activation Functions

The first of a series of articles looking at the mathematics of Custom Criteria with a specific focus on non-linear functions used in Neural Networks, MQL5 code for implementation and the use of targeted and correctional offsets.
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From Novice to Expert: Parameter Control Utility

From Novice to Expert: Parameter Control Utility

Imagine transforming the traditional EA or indicator input properties into a real-time, on-chart control interface. This discussion builds upon our foundational work in the Market Periods Synchronizer indicator, marking a significant evolution in how we visualize and manage higher-timeframe (HTF) market structures. Here, we turn that concept into a fully interactive utility—a dashboard that brings dynamic control and enhanced multi-period price action visualization directly onto the chart. Join us as we explore how this innovation reshapes the way traders interact with their tools.
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Pattern Recognition Using Dynamic Time Warping in MQL5

Pattern Recognition Using Dynamic Time Warping in MQL5

In this article, we discuss the concept of dynamic time warping as a means of identifying predictive patterns in financial time series. We will look into how it works as well as present its implementation in pure MQL5.
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Neural Networks in Trading: State Space Models

Neural Networks in Trading: State Space Models

A large number of the models we have reviewed so far are based on the Transformer architecture. However, they may be inefficient when dealing with long sequences. And in this article, we will get acquainted with an alternative direction of time series forecasting based on state space models.
Interview with Boris Odintsov (ATC 2010)
Interview with Boris Odintsov (ATC 2010)

Interview with Boris Odintsov (ATC 2010)

Boris Odintsov is one of the most impressive participants of the Championship who managed to go beyond $100,000 on the third week of the competition. Boris explains the rapid rise of his expert Advisor as a favorable combination of circumstances. In this interview he tells about what is important in trading, and what market would be unfavorable for his EA.
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Mastering Kagi Charts in MQL5 (Part I): Creating the Indicator

Mastering Kagi Charts in MQL5 (Part I): Creating the Indicator

Learn how to build a complete Kagi Chart engine in MQL5—constructing price reversals, generating dynamic line segments, and updating Kagi structures in real time. This first part teaches you how to render Kagi charts directly on MetaTrader 5, giving traders a clear view of trend shifts and market strength while preparing for automated Kagi-based trading logic in Part 2.
Interview with Antonio Morillas (ATC 2011)
Interview with Antonio Morillas (ATC 2011)

Interview with Antonio Morillas (ATC 2011)

Antonio Morillas from Spain (sallirom, by the way - it is reversed surname!) was first who doubled his starting balance from the beginning of the Championship and thus attracted our attention. His trading strategy is extremely risky. We decided to talk to Antonio about risk and luck as these are part and parcel of Automated Trading Championship.
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Angle-based operations for traders

Angle-based operations for traders

This article will cover angle-based operations. We will look at methods for constructing angles and using them in trading.